


Day of Moping

by NonsenseNotebook



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Internalized Homophobia, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, This Fic Has Been Sponsored by: Fritos, if anthing seems weird just know its bc i didnt watch chapter 1, im a gay man and i just want to see eddie not quite die for once please im begging you, its not very explicitly shipping but like just know that thats the intent, ive watched the miniseries and chapter 2 and read pieces of the book, the rest of the losers are mentioned/heard on the phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 01:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20685068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonsenseNotebook/pseuds/NonsenseNotebook
Summary: A year after It dies, someone else lives againorRichie just wants to mope around and eat chips man





	Day of Moping

They tried to stay in touch afterwards. It was easier for some of them. Ben and Beverly had started seeing each other from the moment they won it seemed. Bill wrote often, texts, emails, even the occasional physical letter. Mike went to Florida, but it didn’t last long, after being in Derry all his life, he wanted to travel, and he took every opportunity he could to check up on all of them. It was hard to adjust after what they had done, after they could not forget what it had done, but they did their best, and with the help of each other (and multiple therapists), they moved on.

Richie did not move on.

He tried very hard to, went to therapy, met up with the rest of the losers whenever he could. He tried to do another show, but once he got on stage it all came tumbling back, flubbing over his words like he did after he got the call from Mike from what seemed to be years ago, really meer days. After that first one he canceled the others out in Reno, stopped the plans for his next tour, told his agent that he needed time to mourn, never specifying who died. He always said it was just an old friend. It was the truth but it didn’t feel like it.

Richie never officially came out to anyone, not even the other losers.  _ They probably knew already though _ , he thought, it seemed like the whole town of Derry knew, like it was all they could think of when they looked at him. Even the  _ fucking  _ clown knew. A childhood of bullies made sure that he never felt secure in his sexuality. Besides, he didn’t want the expectation put upon him that being gay would become the center of his comedy. After his friend in the business came out he was pushed into centering more and more of his routine around his identity. He couldn’t handle that. Sure it meant the public missing out on his stellar gay jokes but fuck them, they can wait till hes good and ready for that.

_ Didn’t even fucking matter _ , he thought to himself, settling on the old couch with his lunch, which just an entire bag of Fritos,  _ Not like i’m ever going to be able to get onstage again, fucking hasbeen, career over, biggest loser of the losers. _

He did tell one person he was gay. Decades ago. It was one of the first things he remembered when Mike called him that first time. Him almost crying as he told Eddie, then immediately punching him in the shoulder and making him swear to never tell anyone.

_ _ He considered getting up for a drink when his phone rang. It was Bill. Again. He watched as he let it go to voicemail. His phone had been blowing up all morning, but he hadn’t answered it once. Today he just wanted to be left alone, in his pajamas, with his chips. Just like he spent every other day this month. He knew why they had been calling anyway. Today marked one year since they finally killed Pennywise. The rest of them had flown out to Bill’s place, to celebrate the end of their torture. He wanted to stay home. Mourn the one year anniversary of his best friend’s death. Eat some fucking junk food. He schooched back into the cushions,  _ fuck the drink _ , he decided as he turned his phone to silent,  _ aint getting out of this spot til after i enter a Frito induced coma _ .

There was a knock at the door. Suppressing a groan, he did his best to fuse his body with the couch. Another knock. He pulled a blanket over himself, laid as still as possible as if that would will the mystery knocker away. 

Just as enough time had passed that he thought that they must have left, they knocked a third time. Doing nothing to suppress his groans this time, he lurched off the couch, draping the blanket over his shoulders as he slumped to the door. _I just wanna couch potato in peace, can I just _**_please _**_coach potato in peace? _He took his time unlocking the door, five locks and two deadbolts, he still wouldn’t admit to anyone that he was a bit paranoid after facing the clown, grumbling the whole time about how much this ruined all his planned slumping time. He swung open the door, squinting into the light outside.   
“What the fuck do you want?”

A man was facing away from him, at the edge of his porch, with short, dark hair. His stomach dropped. The man turned to face him.

“Richie!” exclaimed Eddie.

He slammed the door.

His heart pounded with fear and confusion, it had to be the fucking clown again right? Eddie died, he died right in fucking front of him! But they killed the bastard right? Watched the earth crumble on top of it. And didn’t Mike say something about how the thing only worked in a certain range? Maybe he was hallucinating, that had to be it, he’d finally lost it and was seeing the ghost of his dead friend. There was frantic knocking at the door, he clamped his hands over his ears.

“Richie please! I know this must seem crazy but its me! Its really me!”  
“You aren’t real! Y-You’re some fucking _ghost _or clown _bullshit_! I’m not _fucking _buying it!” The vision was rattling the doorknob. He held it shut with his body while he threw the chain lock on. “You need to leave me the fuck alone! You’re just a fucking hallucination! A dream!” It pushed the door open against the chain while Richie pushed back from the other side.

“Richie how the fuck would a ghost even open a door?!”  
“I don’t know man! A goddamn poltergeist? A shitty alien clown?! I don’t care what the fuck you are but you aren’t getting in my goddamned fucking house!” He managed to get the door shut, turning the deadbolt above the handle so he could take a step back. The whatever it was was still knocking, still calling his name. He backed his way into the living room, never turning an eye from the door, and fumbled for his phone on the table. Bill was calling again, thank god, and he answered.

“Bill hey- thank god you called Jesus fucking Christ I-”

“Richie! Richie shut up for a minute you’re not going to believe who’s here!” he could hear the other losers in the background, laughing, happy. 

“No Bill  _ you  _ shut up because I have something important to tell you.” The knocking slowed down. The fake Eddie’s shadow was visible past the curtains, trying to peek in.

“There's no fucking way that’s true Richie because-”

“No dumbass just listen to-”

“Its Stanley! Richie he’s here!” he froze.

“...What?” 

“It’s him! Stan! It's really him! I know it's crazy and we thought it was some kinda trick at first but it's him! He's here, with his wife! They say he was just there this morning like nothing happened!” The world seemed to shrink away as it all clicked. He could hear Bill calling his name on the phone just inches from his face but it seems miles away.

“Bill I. I’m gonna have to call you back.”

“Richie?” he hung up on him, tossing the phone back on the table. The noise outside had stopped. Deep in his stomach he was still afraid, but. If that really was Bill, and he was telling the truth instead of the cruelest of cruel jokes, and Stan was back. Then…

He didn’t remember walking to the door, but here he was. Hand above the handle. Locks undone. Maybe it was a dream, and he’d open the door to nothing but an empty porch.

He pushed it open a crack. Eddie was sitting on his front step.

“It’s really you, isn’t it?” his voice sounded weak, even to himself. Eddie turned around, pushing himself up slightly.

“Yes! Yes it- it’s really me.” he watched as Eddie pulled himself onto the porch. He sounded like it was unbelievable even to him. He didn’t exit the doorway.

“You. Died.”

“Yeah, yeah I uh, sure did huh.”

“The entire tunnel a-and the fucking house! Fell! On you!”

“I don’t really remember that part, cuz uh, I was. Dead.” They stared at each other for a moment. Richie opened the door further.

“What,  _ do  _ you remember?” Eddie rubbed the back of his neck.

“I remember, you, caught in the deadlights, and uh, I threw that fence spike that Bev gave me at the fucking clown monster, and it. Stabbed me and, then the other guys ran around for a bit while you tried to help me and. Then you left. And then I died.” Eddie shifted his weight to the other foot as he looked up at Richie. “And then I, woke up, at home, with my wife, in New York. Like it was just-”

“A nightmare.”

“Yeah.”

Richie took a tentative step over the threshold, pulling the blanket back over himself.

“So how, how are you here?”

“You think I fucking know?”

“I thought you were dead!”

“ ** _I_ ** thought I was fucking dead! We’re both wrong! Apparently!”

“So what you’re just a goddamn zombie now?”

“If I was I wouldn’t be coming here for brains  _ dumbass _ ”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

And then they were laughing, as if Eddie had not been deceased for the past year.

“Well,” Richie started, a smile on his face for the first time in months. “If you’re not dead but you’re not a zombie, why come all the way out here to me? Shouldn’t you be having fun with your totally-not-awful wife?”

“Oh fuck off shes not, a bad, person.” Richie raised his eyebrows teasingly at his response. “Shut up it's just that. I wake up, suddenly not dead, and I realized I didn’t want to waste my life living the safest possible option. Just- Jesus Christ she’s just like my mom okay I don’t know how I didn’t even realize it sooner but I married my fucking mother Richie! That isn’t normal!” 

“That's gross man.”

“It is!”

“Like that's real fucking weird, see a therapist, I got a number for one but I don’t think she takes vampires.”

Eddie paused, just long enough for Richie to notice the shine of tears in his eyes, before letting out a laugh and shoving him in the chest.

“I’m not a fucking vampire you jackass!”

“Well you could’ve fooled me! Fucking pale son of a bitch!”

“I’ve been dead fuck off! You have to be nice to me!”

“Says who?

“Me!” They both started laughing, when suddenly he was getting a tight hug from the other man. He froze a moment, before returning it, just as tight. Eddie wasn’t laughing anymore, the quiet sound unmistakably him crying. Richie held back tears of his own. He didn’t do a good job at it.

“Hey man, its good, we’re good. You’re okay and good and we’re good.” 

“I’m sorry.” Quiet words, spoken right into his shoulder.

“For what? Making me cry?” He gave an exaggerated sniffle. It got a short chuckle out of Eddie as they separated.

“No just, I don’t know. Fuck.”

“... Do you wanna come inside and talk about it?”

“No dumbass I want to stand on your porch and sob where all your neighbors can watch. Yes I want to go inside.”

They shared one last laugh before they walked inside. Eddie grabbed Richie’s hand as he followed him in. Richie didn’t make a joke about it. His phone lit up again from its spot on the table. He sent Bill a text. 

“Eddie’s back. Call you tomorrow.”

And turned the phone off.

They sat down on the old couch, Richie passed him the Fritos.

They had a lot to talk about.

**Author's Note:**

> basically the idea is that everyone who died as a result of the last cycle (including the kids and adrien and uhhhh maybe bowers as well???) comes back because uhhhh idfk space turtle said so
> 
> (who knows maybe ill do more with this idea dont count on it tho)


End file.
